Mozambique is still littered with land mines from the country's civil war that ended in 1992. According to Handicap International, an estimated 20 people step on landmines every month in Mozambique. This in a country where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and good healthcare is scarce, and the life expectancy is only about 41 years (more than 12 percent of the population is estimated to be infected with HIV). And in addition to claiming the lives of about 60 percent of those who step on them, those land mines eat up land that could be used for farming, etc.

So how to de-mine the country? Rats. To some people they're pets, to others they're pests, but they're also saviors with a nose for sniffing out trouble -- finding scores of land mines with no casualties to the rats (they're too light to trip the mines) or their trainers. Read the story and flip through the pictures of the HeroRats at CNN, which reports that "in 2008 and 2009, about 30 state-accredited HeroRats, their noses atwitter, scampered across more than a million square meters of Mozambican land, ferreting out almost 400 mines and other ordnance. The U.N. says 9.6 million square meters still needed to be cleared in 2009."

You can also help sponsor a HeroRat in its life-saving work, which includes not just finding land mines but sniffing out tuberculosis and toxins. Click here for more info.

(Handout Photo by The HALO Trust/Getty Images)

This Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaida, a pastor of a small Florida church plans on holding a Quran bonfire, an event that falls under the country's free speech protections but has ignited a firestorm of controversy, protests and pleas from those who fear that the move will give rise to additional violence against U.S. interests across the world -- namely, the coalition effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The "International Burn a Koran Day" advertises on its Facebook page that "on September 11th, 2010, from 6pm - 9pm, we will burn the Koran on the property of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!" Needless to say, numerous Facebook pages have popped up against the Burn a Koran Day.

Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. and NATO commander in that precarious mission, took a rare step into the political arena yesterday and warned against the book burning as Afghans chanting "Death to America" marched in protest through Kabul. "It puts our soldiers in jeopardy, very likely," he told ABC News Tuesday. "And I think, in fact, images from such activity could very well be used by extremists here and around the world." White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs echoed Petraeus' concerns. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called it a "disgraceful plan." Attorney General Eric Holder calls it "idiotic." And not like the Dove World Outreach Center would listen to anything the Vatican says, but the Holy See said the 9/11 terrorist attacks "cannot be counteracted by an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community."

Despite the outrcy, Pastor Terry Jones is determined to go ahead with the burning. "As of right now, we are not convinced that backing down is the right thing," said Jones, who says he's received more than 100 death threats.

More on the Quran burning:

The Guardian has a photo gallery of worldwide protests.

Iran is running with the story as some greater conspiracy of the Great Satan.

At USA Today, Thomas S. Kidd, senior fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, says just because Muslims have freedom to build a mosque near Ground Zero doesn't mean they necessarily should, and just because we have the freedom to burn Qurans doesn't mean we should, either.

Now, what do YOU think?

(Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Let me preface by saying that nothing of a lot of sense comes out of Tehran these days. For instance, their latest "ambassador of death" drone, according to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, really carries "a main message of peace and friendship." Now, Iran is telling the world that the impending stoning sentence for a woman accused of adultery is none of the world's business -- European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso "barbaric beyond words" -- and "should not become a human rights issue."

First, a primer on what stoning involves. The victim's hands are tied behind her back, and then her body is shrouded in a cloth sack, head included. Then she's buried in a hole up to her shoulders (men buried up to their necks), meaning that if she's Houdini and can somehow escape this situation she gets to live. A circle is drawn around the victim, a line from which attackers will chuck stones at the person. The stone throwing continues until the victim is dead or manages to pull that Houdini, escape the hole and escape the circle. To give an indication of the barbarism, the Taliban love it as a form of capital punishment. In Islamic Sharia law, it's indicated as a specific punishment for adulterers.

In Iran, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, is accused of illicit sex and charged with involvement in her husband's death, and her stoning sentence has caused international outcry and at least a temporary stay. But as the BBC reports, Iran isn't concerned about that outcry:

"Tehran's foreign ministry dismissed Western concerns about Iranian justice.

'Unfortunately, [they are] defending a person who is being tried for murder and adultery,' spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said at a Tehran news conference.

'If releasing all those who have committed murder is to be perceived as a human rights issue, then all European countries should release all the murderers in their countries,' he was reported as saying.

...After criticism from foreign nations, there were reports in July that Iranian officials may have temporarily halted her stoning sentence. However, she still faces the possibility of death by hanging, or life imprisonment.

Her case is now being reviewed by Iran's Supreme Court. It remains stayed pending a final decision by the judiciary, Mr Mehmanparast added."

Not only do they not think it's a human rights issue, but Iran has reportedly sentenced two more people to death by stoning: Vali Janfeshani and Sariyeh Ebadi, convicted of having an extramarital affair.

And to add injury to barbarism, Ashtiani's lawyer confirms that his client was whipped with 99 lashes for "spreading corruption and indecency" because a photo of a woman without a headscarf pictured in the Times of London was mistakenly identified as her. Her family fears that with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ending this week, she could be stoned at "any moment.

The Vatican is decrying the sentence as brutal and will likely step in to try to save the woman's life. But considering that Iran refused an offer of asylum by Brazil, which is an ally of Tehran, it's a longshot that the mullahs will listen to the Holy See.

Get ready for another Kim.

After communist granddaddy Kim "Great Leader" Il-Sung and Kim "Dear Leader" Jong-Il have shaped the rather failed state of North Korea, one of Kim's sons is being groomed to be the country's third leader as speculation has swirled about the state of the Dear Leader's health since he suffered a stroke two years ago. This means calling the first meeting of the Korean Workers Party -- the ruling party that also rules over the other two, minority parties -- in 30 years, and the possible appointment of third son Kim Jong-un as his successor.

More from The Guardian:

"The city is reportedly decked out in posters announcing the meeting. 'Let's make this a festive event that will shine in the history of our country and people,' read one seen in footage from AP Television News.

The Rodong Sinmun, the party's newspaper, said delegates from across the country were poised to approve key policies and personnel changes at the heart of the regime's leadership. The meeting coincides with the 62nd anniversary, on 9 September, of North Korea's founding by Jong-un's grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

...The international community will use what information it can glean from reports of the secretive meeting to piece together an idea of how North Korea might behave under a new leader.

'I am aware of the news reports, but all I can say is that we are collecting information from various fronts and rushing to analyse it,' Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, told reporters in Tokyo. 'Japan's biggest interest lies in whether the meeting produces a regime that could help pave the way for breaking a stalemate in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme.'

The meeting is the first party congress since 1980, when Kim Jong-il was confirmed as Kim Il-sung's successor, although he did not become leader until his father's death in 1994. It comes at a time of rising tensions in the region: relations with Seoul quickly deteriorated after international inspectors said a North Korean torpedo had sunk the Cheonan, a South Korean naval ship, in March.

...Little is known about Kim Jong-un. He is thought to be aged 27 or 28 and was educated at the prestigious International School of Berne, in Switzerland.

...North Korea experts believe Kim Jong-il will place his son in a key party post, giving him a base from which to emulate his father's rise through the ranks of the country's military and political elites."

In other North Korea news, the country has told its nemesis South Korea that it needs rice and other "necessary equipment and resources" to recover from floods, just as the North said it would release seven fisherman the North captured a month ago.

(Photo by Korean Central Television/Yonhap via Getty Images)